No Swiss Cheese Please!

"No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half-thought of it ourselves." ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

So the costs and more details of the new Sovereignty mechanics has been released and let me say, I’m not at all impressed. I actually did have high hopes for D-day but those hopes were quickly snuffed out.

First of all, I’m in agreement with what many others have been saying about the costs. I was fully expecting a tiered expense. Meaning, the more systems you own, the higher the bill gets. Not statically as in ‘this system costs 2 mil. That system costs 2 mil. Oh, and that system costs 2 mil. You want all three? Okay, that’ll be 6 mil then.” Simple, sure, but this is certainly not what I had in mind. CCP’s mindset seems to be if they make it expensive enough and make the upgrades even more expensive, that will control the number of systems people own. I seriously beg to differ.

Now when it comes to talking numbers and values and all that other jazz, I’d be like the kid in gym class who gets picked last every time. I can barely manage my own finances let alone the idea of watching market values and fluctuations and actually comprehending what I’m reading. What I do know is that if it takes farming complexes on a daily basis just to help pay for our systems, then I have to wonder, where is the time to go shoot someone else. Add to that the fact of not having a reason to take their space because that would just mean even more systems to pay for without any real value of actually having them, and it ruins the whole beauty of 0.0 and the epic battles for space superiority. I said not too long ago we’ll fight because we can and because we have guns. But epic fights come from having goals and objects, trophies to be won other than just another notch on the killboard.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, the revamp of 0.0 is not at all going to be like people seem to think. It’s not going to consolidate the current alliances into smaller blocks in space. Based on the new prices posted by CCP, I can actually agree with a comment made on the CAOD forums by a Goon member, Nobani, when he said the following:

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Originally by: Darriele
And those are basic expenses, but when upgrades are implemented the cost can double or even triple. Ofc no ally will try to keep up sov. in so many systems,they will try to compact their "sphere of influence" around a single spot.

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Originally by: Nobani
It's more likely we'll get swiss-cheese sov. Station, cap ship construction, jump bridge, key moon mining and key PvE systems will have sov claimed. Transit systems with four belts and no R64s will not have sov, but the local alliance will still drop a hammer on anyone who tries to set up shop there.

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Frankly, here’s what I was sort of hoping for:

You start off with choosing your home system. This would be like your capitol system that you would spider web out from. For that capitol system, you pay a measly amount. Let’s say 1 million. You’re able to upgrade it, put in an outpost, build whatever. From that system, you can then claim any of the systems around yours. The systems next to your claimed capitol system will each cost the number of jumps from your capitol system multiplied by itself.. This would exclude the first jump which would automatically be double whatever the base amount is. In this example, it would be 2 million. From there on out, a system 2 jumps away would be 4 million. Based on 2 x 2. Three jumps out would be 9 million based on 3 x 3. Four jumps out, 16 million based on 4 x 4. Five jumps out, 25 million based on 5 x 5. I’ll assume you get the picture by now. As a side note, the prices shown here are for EACH system. Like systems four jumps out cost 16 mil a piece. So if you want say all 6 systems that are 4 jumps out from your capitol system, you would owe 96mil (16x6) a month for those systems plus whatever other systems you owe closer to your capitol.

Of course these numbers could be adjusted based on the findings of people who know more about the isk flow. However, I have no doubt this system would be more effective towards alliances making serious considerations towards the size of the space they own. I would also propose an alliance can only have one capitol system thus preventing the swiss cheese effect.

Now yes, this would create the issue of people just creating alt alliances to mitigate the effects of the tiered costs. However, how many alt alliances do you really think they’d make? Imagine the complications that having numerous alt alliances would create by way of logistics. Imagine the chances of those alt alliances being more easily torn apart through internal conflicts. On top of that, the more alliances you have, the more isk you gotta sink to create em.

I’m sure others could come up with other loop holes, or just outright disagree. But frankly, at least in my own opinion and I think many others, it would be a MUCH better system than what CCP is proposing to implement and is the design I think most had in their heads already.

Either way though, no matter what happens, people will adapt….. Or die in trying…

Dominion: Gold Rush or Fool's Gold?

A lot of buzz has been going around about the upcoming changes to sovereignty, what I've termed D-day. With a severe lack of solid information (even so close to it's supposed release dates), I've been hard pressed about writing anything and giving any sort of firm opinion on the subject. I can however say a few things with almost complete confidence. This is NOT going to be end of the current 0.0 empires! This is NOT going to be the mad space rush that people seem to think it will be.

Pay enough attention to the forums and you'll begin to see, the only people that will be in 0.0 are the people familiar with 0.0 as it currently is. Yes, there may be some alliances that fail cascade under the new mechanics. But alliances such as Goonswarm, Atlas, AAA, Tau Ceti, Razor, and even my alliance, Systematic Chaos, are not just going to suddenly disappear. And all that space they hold? Okay, sure, they may consolidate the actual space they have their names on, but if empire dwelling corporations and alliances think they're suddenly going to move out to 0.0 and stake their claim in the vacated areas, well I say they're in for a real eye opener.

I think Eve Monkey said it best in the last line of his blog post. "...it will be difficult to gain any space your neighbor doesn’t want you to." And that is 100% true.

Basically, take a look at this map. We'll take Goonswarm space as an example. Currently, on that map you see a huge yellow blotch covering the areas that Goonswarm maintains sovereignty over. After D-day, yes, that may very likely change. That blotch of yellow will probably shrink quite a bit. Does this mean the surrounding areas, the areas that will no longer be covered in that ugly yellow, will suddenly be open turf and gobbled up by other, previously unknown, formerly empire based alliances? No. It may no longer have their name on it but don't think for a moment that it will suddenly become open game to just about anyone. They may not have their name on it but in essence it will still be controlled by Goonswarm. It will likely still be patrolled and regulated by their fleets on a consistent basis.

In my opinion, Sovereignty will no longer be a "put your name on as much space as you can" game. Instead it will be, "this is our home, but nobody can live around our home unless we want you there and you pay us to live there or at least work out some sort of agreement."

So okay. Not being one to beat my own chest and insist I am completely right on a subject of which a lot of information is still lacking, let’s consider the other difficult aspect of 0.0 living. This isn’t like wormholes. This isn’t a situation where you’ll fairly often be able to find a nice route back to Empire space. You have got to take into consideration logistics.

Currently, my alliance resides in the region Esoteria. Referring to that same map, you can see it’s quite a distance between there and empire. And between us is a number of other alliances. However, the reason we’re able to survive there is because we have a very well established and organized logistics system. But more importantly, we have agreements with those alliances between us and empire allowing us use of their jump bridges and safe travel through their systems. Without that, we would be hard pressed to survive in the area we are. Not impossible mind you, just a lot more difficult. This is what Goonswarm was actually trying to break in this last war. They had hopes of ruining our relationship with the other Alliances and thus breaking our ability to survive. Unfortunate for them, they failed.

So I suggest to all those corps and alliances that intend to move to nullsec after D-day, start thinking about where you'd like to go. Then speak with the diplomats of the current sovereign alliance about possible relations or treaties. Otherwise, don't be surprised when you get your butt handed to you and sent back to empire via the clone vat express.

Oh, and for those wondering about the war, it ended just about as quickly as it started. There was a lot of bullshit that flew around about it, but I think this sounds to be the most logical.

Originally Posted by The Mittani
THE FALL OF ESOTERIA

STANDING ORDERS:

1. Withdraw to TPAR.
2. Prepare to defend PA-V in Period Basis against Romulans

WHAT THE FUCK:

Vietnam is a poor gimmick for this war, because since we're opting to cut our losses it has instead become something of a Bay of Pigs. We could bog down in A1 after losing a host of towers in the face of 700 hostiles last night in our primetime, or we could say "Here's what went wrong" and sever.

WHAT WENT WRONG:

First, the attack should have focused on stations, not logistics hubs, with GS at the tip of the spear and not ZAF. Instead, ZAF was given a station to take, and GS was assaulting a bridge system. Should GS have succeeded, the enemy would have been impacted somewhat, but not as grievously as if we had been grinding on a station. ZAF was distracted by their loss of sov in PA-V and the Romulan invasion of that system, and so couldn't really concentrate against their Esoteria station target; moreover, they don't have much experience in the vanguard assault position. That station was not taken and the hostile bloc could concentrate against us in A1.

While losing a capfleet is no big deal to us, combined with the IGNE titan loss, our enemies saw weakness and surged over the weekend to bring 700 people against our 100 in our primetime. Pubbies don't understand that we think the IGNE thing is funny, they just smell blood in the water and swarm. Our timers and pos-fittings haven't had a chance to recover in A1 and our foothold on that system never fully established.

This invasion was planned by someone who does not usually do our war planning. It was a 'final exam' of sorts, and that exam was failed. However, you can legitimately blame the directorate for entrusting such an important plan to someone who screwed it up.

For example, allies were going to be making some distracting assaults on the blocs involved to draw attention away such that Atlas couldn't gangpile in along with Stainwagon, ROL and -A-. Those assaults did not happen because the person who was planning the war never confirmed these plans with our allies, nor followed up with them.

Logistics was also a disaster with GSOL essentially being unprepared for the invasion and left scrambling to pick up the pieces while understaffed.

In sum, the directorate fucked up by delegating the invasion to the wrong person and not making sure these critical issues were being handled competently.

WHAT NOW:

Expect an energized foe to strike us. Romulans moved six Jump Freighters into PA-V, in Period Basis, a former ZAF station system. In the near term we will be retreating to TPAR and preparing to help defend PA-V.

Meanwhile, ROL has been running distraction attacks on us in Querious, so we need to trim out a few small staging towers they dropped on us, and possibly make some reprisal attacks on their moons in Khanid.

Now, honestly, given my lack of time in the pod lately, I’m not sure what happened after that between the “Romulans” and Goons. As for Systematic Chao’s involvement, if you want a better look into what transpired from our perspective of the war, hop on over to Prometheus09’s blog. He did an awesome job of writing about it.

For me, all I know is that things in Eso have gone back to its usual business. In fact, with D-day coming, and the latest war, we haven’t been bothering much with Brick squad. Guess they were so saddened by the sudden lack of engagements, yesterday they decided to declare official war on us through Concord. All I can say is, good luck with that…

Let The Battle Drums Be Heard

I jacked into my pod yesterday evening expecting to either find a group to join up with for a roam or if none were to be had, to go out hunting on my own. It seems however, that was not to be.

“You can't say civilization don't advance -- for in every war, they kill you in a new way.” –Will Rogers

I’m still pretty new to 0.0 but from what I’m always told, things always have a tendency to heat up during the latter part of the year. Already, things have begun to heat up in the northern areas of Nullsec. Up until now, the south, where my alliance resides, has been for the most part fairly quiet. I honestly had a thought that little would happen until after the release of Dominion and Concord’s changes to the sovereignty rights of 0.0 alliances. However, my lack of experience in 0.0 warfare is exactly why I didn’t put any real weight on that belief and it’s good I didn’t cause as it appears, I was wrong.

At some point yesterday or the night before, Goonswarm and their pets, Zenith Affinity, invaded Esoteria and more specifically, my alliance’s home systems.

The difference between 0.0 and empire is that there doesn’t always have to be an “official” proclamation of war filed with Concord. It’s not that it doesn’t happen; it’s just not a common occurrence. Declaring war by filing with Concord is not only bad for the group being attacked but bad as well for the attacker. So when I say we are at war, understand that is an “unofficial” statement.

However, when your home space is invaded as ours has, I think it’s pretty obvious.

So….with that in mind, and taking a cue from a fellow blogger as well as alliance mate, Manasi, I will be locking down my comments section. They will not be blocked entirely but will now require approval before being posted. This journal isn’t nearly as popular as his, nor am I a corporation director within the alliance, so I don’t entirely feel the need to block the comments entirely. However, Goons are known for their out-of-pod babble and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them eventually attempting to post their drivel here whenever I may post something about my engagements with them.

Beyond that though, I look forward to the plenty of battles I’m sure we will be having. This is, after all, the reason I wanted to move to 0.0. So to all the goon children that may read this, “See you on the battlefield!”

Back In The Pod Saddle

Life outside the pod can get a little hectic at times. I never deny being the individual who is easily distracted from one thing to another but eventually….. I always come back. So has it been with being in the pod and more importantly, being there for my corporation/alliance. I still can't quite commit the time I'd like right now to going out and fighting the good fight, but hopefully soon that will change and things will settle down.

I did, however, manage to get out on a roam with some of my alliance mates yesterday. I almost felt it was necessary given it appears my absence has been noticed. Since I'm still fairly new to the corp and I don’t want them thinking I’m just useless weight. More importantly, thinking I’m some alt spy. I spoke with my good friend, Prom, who'd originally recruited me and he, in his non-chalant way, also expressed his concern for me and my lack of interaction. That conversation took place on Friday, so I made a point of hopping in the pod over the weekend with hopes of perhaps redeeming myself. Unfortunately, out-of-pod events kept me away from the hanger on Saturday, to which it seemed I missed some sort of CTA, but Sunday, it was game on.

I had just connected into my pod systems when I saw an invite for a fleet op. 'Perfect,' I thought as I quickly linked my comm systems with the gathering fleet. There was a bit of discussion for some time as to what exactly we were doing and eventually it was decided on a simple random roam. The fleet consisted of a whole slew of ship sizes so I opted to just go in my favored ship, the assault frigate. "Buzz”, my Ishkur, has been a faithful companion to me for many months now. Having seen numerous engagements, and getting my ass out of them alive and intact, it had earned itself a very special place in my heart. This roam, as it turned out, would see Buzz saving my stupid butt once again.

Just a quick side note. I realized a desperate need to start taking notes of things, as they happen, given my inability to remember a lot of the details when I do finally sit down to write about them. So is the case with this incident. In other words, forgive some lack of details and info or, for those involved, anything important I might miss.

So yeah…back to the story…

We were roaming through Period Basis, looking for possible targets to engage. There were a couple of small engagements I believe, a frig here or a cruiser there, but really nothing grand until a call came in on the intel channel. Two Zenith Affinity carriers had been tackled in a system fairly close to us, about 6 jumps away. Immediately we put the burners on and rushed towards the system. Being in an assault frig, I was fortunate to be one of the first on scene and quickly moved in to get a point on them. Goal was to further strengthen our hold until the main dps of our small, roughly 20 man fleet could arrive. My rusty experience nearly taught me a hard lesson though, as I moved too close to the primaried Archon. In a sudden blast of blinding light, my shields nearly vaporized. It was quickly followed by a second blast which tore away a large chunk of armor. Smartbombs. Damn I hate those things...

Quickly, I spun the frig away from the carriers and hit the MWD. I had surprisingly just survived a double whammy as both carriers, fairly close together, had set off smartbombs. Silly me had gotten right between the two ships when they were set off, and much too close to the Archon for my usual taste anyways. I had surprisingly survived, but in the blast, I'd also lost my first set of drones, Hobgoblin IIs, which I had stupidly deployed already. I had expected to be engaging deployed fighters. However, the lack of fighters present really should have put up a giant red flag for me to be wary. Obviously I wasn’t. Hindsight is always 20/20 right?

Anyways, burning away, I reached a distance of about 30km before turning back and setting myself in a nice orbit just close enough to keep my overheated point on the carrier while staying out of his bomb range. By this time, the rest of the fleet had arrived and were already chewing through his shields and armor. A few other enemy ships appeared, ranging from battlecruisers down to frigs, all of which we quickly dispatched before returning to work on the carriers.

But a carrier kill was not to be had.

Suddenly the gate activated and local spiked. A large fleet from Goonswarm had just appeared to save the tackled carriers. Having focused so intently on keeping my point, not getting too close to their discoing smartbombs (though failing a couple more times beyond my initial hits), I’d only been able to assist on one other kill and that being only a small amount. So when the Goon fleet had entered the battle and comms went just a little crazy, I determined to go after a kill even if it meant suicide killing “Buzz”. I just sort of tuned out the ‘static’ on the comms and spotting a nearby Amarr cruiser, unleashed the remaining Warrior II drones. I then ordered my ship to set a nice tight orbit and opened fire with my 3 Ion blasters. Under the combined fire, the cruiser’s shields peeled away quickly and I was soon half way through its armor when suddenly I realized my ship had left it’s orbit around the cruiser!

“What the hell,” I stammered, seeing my warp drive activated by what appeared to be its own accord. “NO!!” was all I had time to scream as the warp bubble wrapped itself around my ship and my Ishkur hurled itself away from the battle. Not only had I just left a likely kill but I’d also left behind my remaining drones! Come to find out, the FC had made the decision to withdraw and, given the current lack of discipline on the comms, he had simply initiated fleet warp.

When my ship finally came out of warp at a safe spot, for a moment all I could do was just sit there, stunned by what had just happened. Even as local continued to rise with the usual goon blob continuing to roll in, still I remained motionless. I mean, being fleet warped… unannounced… from the middle of a battle… can have a very disorienting effect! Especially when your blood lust is pumped up so high.

To be honest, I’m not sure how long I simply just sat there. However, after some moments, I came back to my senses. Thankfully, it was just in time to hear the order given to move out while one of the gates were still clear. We’d taken a few losses, but for the most part were still intact and it was determined that it’d be best to just make our way home and regroup there. We were chased, of course, but made our escape with very little problems and were soon safely docked at home.

Once I’d completed the docking sequence, instead of sticking around for a regrouping, I chose to just unplug and go for a coffee or something. One close call was enough for one day.

Maybe this evening I’ll go out for a little solo roam and see if I can redeem my abrupt denial of a kill. I definitely could use something to get myself back into the flow of things and a solo roam would certainly do that…

The Industrialist

“Hey love...”

“Hey hun! So…how did it go??”

“It went well. As expected, I’m on a trial basis but it was pretty much a sure fire thing to get that at least. She’s already discu….”

“Wait a minute…she?” the woman on the screen spoke, her eyes narrowing at him slightly.

“Yes, it’s a she,” the man answered, a gentle chuckle rumbling through his throat. “No worries love. She may in essence be immortal but she’s still only half my age.”

“Hmm….but didn’t you already tell me she was Gallante?”

“Yes…she is…but..”

“Well then, that’s bad enough. We both know how free spirited and troublesome Gallante women can be. You watch yourself around her. I swear I will hunt…” She cut short as he burst out in full blown laughter. “It’s not funny,” she exclaimed with a pout, crossing her arms over her chest in a defiant stance.

“Yes it is,” he said, continuing to laugh. “You damn well know better than that, so stop pretending.”

“Oh….blah,” she sneered before a smile broke across her own face. “Still though, just be good.”

“You know I will be.”

“So when will you be home?”

He sighed and leaned back in his seat. “I’m afraid that won’t be for awhile. In fact, I’m not sure when exactly it will be. I mean, at present, I’m working on sorting and consolidating the assets here in Jita. Once I’ve got that accomplished, I’ve gotta pick up where her hauler pilot left off; sorting through bpo’s, doing some recon for possible locations to put up a POS, and possibly even doing a little market trading to get isk flowing here in Empire.”

Shrugging, he sat up a bit straighter, glancing over the reports splayed out on his work center’s screen.

“I’ll give the girl credit though. It definitely appears she’s done her research. I’ve got a listing of potential gear to put out buy orders for, along with what systems to buy and what systems to sell in, an entire and complete schematic for a POS setup, a complete skill training plan, along with a neural remap point, for the next 8 months, and a growing list of spreadsheets for tracking production and sales. This girl definitely shows that she knows how to run a business…. So what am I here for again??”

The woman laughed. “Planning is one thing darling. Doing is another. And she couldn’t hire a better man for the job.”

Grinning, ‘Wolf’ playfully lifted his nose to the air. “You’re just saying that cuz you’re my wife.”

“Yeah. You’re right. But if anything, at least you’ll get the skill injections from her. If things don’t work out, I’m sure you’ll be able to at least sell your services to someone else at the bazaar. “

“True. But alright. I gotta catch some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sounds good. Love you.”

“Love you too,” he said just before closing the vid link and slipping away to find the warm comfort of his bed.

Welcome Aboard

A knock on the door pulls Selina from her concentration. The paperwork massing on her desk had begun to overflow and she was finally just now sitting down to sort through it. This endeavor into the production side of life was quite mind boggling at times, but slowly she felt she was getting a handle on it. Lately, she’d been doing a lot of research and had come up with quite a few answers to her remaining questions about production, research, and everything else involved with ‘that side of life’. Soon, she should be ready to begin her own production and hopefully, soon after, start to see the results of her work flashing the wallet. It was, of course, going to take some time, effort and organization to track everything but it was something she was sort of looking forward to. It was a goal that she could focus on and create perhaps a steadier source of income and be far less dependant on the time consuming task of killing bounty clad pirates in the local belts.

However, after having done all the research, she realized it wasn’t something she was going to be able to do on her own. She needed an associate, a business and financial handler. She needed someone who could focus entirely on the company’s production and sales and eventually be able to transport the tons of resources and finished products from one place to another. To do this herself would take far too much time….time that could instead be spent on training her combat skills. She’d already spent perhaps too much time training to run some of the production….but to be truly efficient, she needed someone that could be more focused than she could allow herself to be. Thus, she’d put in a call to the various academies in Empire. She didn’t have the funds at present to hire an already trained pilot, so instead she resorted to hiring a fresh academy recruit. Besides, at least this way she would be able to train and focus the person entirely the way she wanted.

“Enter,” she called out.

The door slid open with a soft hiss and in walked a large Amarrian man. He was tall and stocky, a man well into his 50s with dark, neatly trimmed, through slightly receding, hair. Across his brow was implanted a standard Amarrian steel tattoo and his garb consisted of a tight necked, militant style uniform, common amongst the aristocratic, industrial executives of Amarrian society. The site of him, though, made her cringe a bit. Not because of his garb or attire but rather due to her all too familiar knowledge of their slave practices. Being Gallante, having been raised as a Gallante woman, her distaste for their practices were almost ingrained in her DNA…but at the same time, she definitely knew their ability to get things done….efficiently…

“Greetings m’am,” he started as soon as he entered the room. “My name is..”

“I don’t care what your name is. I already have all of your information here. Besides, too many ears in this place and frankly, I’d rather nobody knew of our association for the time being. Is that understood?”

“Yes M’am. Quite understood,” the man stated, his back straight, his eyes glaring just slightly.

“Look, it’s nothing personal. And I understand and have received notice of your reservations about working for me. This is your first time out of Amarr space, is it not?”

The man nodded slowly, his eyes turning curious.

“The fact is, from this point forward, it doesn’t matter whether you are Amarr, Galante, Caldari, or Minmatar. You are a pod pilot and possibly the soon to be executive officer of my industrial affairs…and that’s it. Both your income and mine will be intertwined. You will be responsible for running all empire based business affairs while I deal with things out in nullsec. All monetary transactions will be shared between our accounts. You pull from the pot as needed, just as I will. I can return to Empire whenever need be, but I can’t be in two places at once, so I would prefer to keep my presence there to a minimum. Is that clear?”

Again the man nodded, the glare having left his face. “Yes M’am. Very clear.”

“Good. Now please, though you will be working for me, understand as well that you are not what I would consider my employee. You are my business associate. Plain and simple. However, until you are at a point of being self sufficient, basically when production is in full swing, I will be supplying you with all the isk needed to get things going. What skills do you have training at present?”

“Currently all the base learning skills, M’am.”

“Please, stop calling me that. You’re more than welcome to call me Selina. And as for skills, that’s perfect. I will look into purchasing the advanced skills for you as soon as I get a chance. By my calculations, we should have those pretty much done before the medical staff’s timers expire, stating its no longer safe to train you at the increased neural speed. From there, we’ll get you into a Hauler for doing the basic stuff and then work on getting your production skills to an advanced level, followed by your trade skills. After that, we will stay focused on your training for jump freighters with an emphasis on the freighter piloting abilities first, and finally, look into training you to fly an Orca. Beyond the Orca...….well…we’ll look into that when the time comes. The production, trade and jump freighter is your main objectives. That alone will probably take you the better part of a year.”

“Sounds good to me,” he states, his demeanor seeming to finally relax.

Selina sits for a moment, looking at him in contemplation. “Understand, you’re still on trial. Concord has given me the right to train you for 21 days before I’m required to get you a full pilot’s license. I already know there are some skills I will not be able to supply to you while you’re on trial, based on Concord regulations, but I will see how far I can go and we’ll work from there. When your trial period expires, I’m sure I’ll have a more concrete decision as to whether I want to take you on fully. Basically, I just want time to decide if you are the right decision for me.”

The man slowly nods. “I quite understand and am very appreciative of this chance you’re giving me. I will do my best not to let you down.”

Selina smiles and finally stands, extending her hand to the man. “Well then,” she says as he takes her hand. “Welcome aboard. Oh, and from here on out, your code name, a sort of call sign I will always refer to you as, shall be Wolf.”

The man grins, obviously pleased by the nickname. “Sounds good to me.”

“Well good, again, welcome aboard Wolf. Be sure to speak with my hauler pilot, Ailiana, on your way out. She’ll get you set up with whatever you need as well as the location and access to our industrial storage hanger. Otherwise, you’re dismissed.”

“Yes M’am,” he says before turning and slipping quietly out the door.

Once the door closed, Selina plopped back into her seat, rubbing her temples. She sure as hell hoped she was making a wise decision. But either way, it was certainly worth a shot.

Clueless Endeavors

"Begin recording...

"I really have no idea what I'm doing. And am I odd for saying I find it to be quite comical?

"Basically, I’m nearly finished training up all the skills to a suitable level for building. As per my usual though, I’m now questioning myself and wondering if it was really intelligent of me to train myself for this. I don’t have an “associate” like many do (although I once did) so I pretty much do everything on my own. I did take a small amount of time away from my own training, to train up my hauler pilot. However, the gal is really only trained just enough to transport any materials to and from our staging base in Empire. Otherwise, she has pretty much no other skills. I mean, I brought her on-board my roster before the new pilot academy system was put into effect, so she at least had a base set of skills to work off of. But beyond the minimum knowledge in Minmatar combat systems, and the skill to fly her Amarrian hauler, she knows little else. And I have no intention or desire in the near future to train her any further as it would inhibit my own training too much.

"So the reason for this brainstorm is that I’m considering hiring a new associate to be a focused industrial coordinator. This is, for the most part, what my previous associate was, but he was focused more on mining as well as exploration than actually building anything. A true prospector if you will. In hiring a new associate, I would want a character focused entirely on industrial skills for both building, as well as training up the skills needed to eventually fly a jump freighter. This leaves me with the question of either train one up myself or just get up the money to buy an already trained character from the eve-o forums… For now though, I think I’ll just wait a bit and see how things work out with doing it myself to build.

"Biggest hurdle will be finding a place to do the material and time efficiency research. I can see it being rather difficult to find that here in 0.0 without setting up my own POS. But a POS, after some thought, is a burden I really don’t think I want right now. So I may just look into a few quiet, remote, low sec stations. HOWEVER, that in and of itself creates some problems and is thus the reason why I’ve started considering getting an associate. If I have to do all my research in empire, it could seriously inhibit my ability to be an active, reliable member for my corporation. Having my research done so far away will require me to jump clone back and forth quite regularly. Due to the 24 hour cool down period between jump cloning, this means there may be a lot of days where I won’t be able to respond to any spur of the moment CTAs or home defense.

"But again, this is all initial thinking and I’ll get it all figured out eventually.

"As for BPOs….well I already have a rather significant amount of BPOs piling up in my hanger. It’s taken a fair amount of traveling to gather all that I currently have, and I still have a few more I want to get. Problem is that I’m having a tough time locating them all. I’ve mostly been focusing on the original, seeded locations to purchase the BPOs as this is generally the cheapest price, as well as the most focused locations, for an entire category of BPOs I’m looking for. However, a few of the BPO categories I’m seeking are being a bit elusive. There just doesn’t seem to be a good, solid reference as to which corporation I can find a particular BPO from.

"Ahh well, I’m actually kind of enjoying this little treasure hunt.

"End recording."

You Wascally Wabbit!

“Systems check.”

“All systems online and fully operational.”

“Roger that. Set the nav computer to home ladies and gents. We’re getting the hell out of here!”

A chorus of “aye” could be heard over Selina’s neural ship comms as the crew turned to their stations, ready for the journey.

“Initiate warp sequence.”

And with that, the Ishkur frigate and its crew lurched forward, rocketing through space, bent on returning home….. or to die trying.
__________________________________

“They’re on the run!”

“Who?!”

“KIA. They had a small gate camp set up in U-6. We just broke it up and now they’re on the run.”

“Ahh, roger that. I’m just a few jumps out from y’all. What’s their direction of travel?”

“We’re not entirely sure. Working on that now.”

Selina, noticing a flicker in another portion of her mental view, shifted her ‘eyes’ and mentally smiled to herself.

“No need pilot. They’re here, in my system LC. And you’re right. They do appear to be on the run,” she said as she watched the local pilot numbers trickle up and then start to drop again before the last of them had even entered system. Well this was certainly an opportunity she wasn’t about to pass up. “I’m warping to their outbound gate, VNPF. Try to see if I can lock one or two of them down.”

“In warp to the gate as well, Selina,” another pilot from her alliance announced.

Slowly the distance and the local numbers trickled down as her ship approached the gate until finally, the warp bubble collapsed. Her alliance mate, in another Ishkur, appeared to have landed just before her and was already moving to engage a straggling lone Jaguar. At first it appeared the Minmatar frigate was going to engage. Maybe if Selina had arrived only a few seconds later, he would have, but with the appearance of a second Ishkur, Selina’s Ishkur, he quickly disengaged and turned to run. Sadly for him because although he narrowly escaped certain doom at the hands of two Ishkurs… he was now trapped in the system.

A couple times Selina and the other Ishkur pilot nearly had him, chasing him from one place to the next, but each time narrowly missing him. She couldn’t help but chuckle and ‘tip her hat’ to the poor rabbit. For about 30 minutes they played this game. Occasionally he would make it out of the system only to return a moment later after seeing other ships on the other sides of the gates. Finally, after unsuccessfully being able to lock him down, she decided to just let him go and move on. The call of a nice hot dinner and a plush warm bed was becoming too much to ignore.

Sleeping in the Enemy’s House

Having checked the day prior, Selina had read an alliance mail of an early morning CTA. No particular goal in mind, it was claimed to be a simple roam, hoping to get some nice kills in. When the time came however, the CTA was called off and instead, a small gang of about 20 to 25 pilots decided to go for a long roam anyways.

Powering up the systems of her Ishkur, she undocked and made her way to the rally point. It had been quite some time since she’d been on any organized roams and she was determined to fulfill that growing need for blood and destruction. This particular fleet consisted of mostly smaller ships; a few cruisers, interdictors, heavy assault cruisers, some battlecruisers and a small flight of frigates, hers included. It felt good to be back in her Ishkur and with the minimal numbers of frigates in the fleet, she expected she was going to be busy.

After they had gathered at the rally point, the destination system was given and they immediantly set out. Thirty-seven jumps, her navigation computer informed her, with much of that through Goon space. As much as she despised Goons, as much as she wanted to wipe them from the face of Eve and everything they stood for, it still made her a tad nervous to travel so far through the space they held sovereignty over. They were an enormous presence in 0.0 with perhaps the largest pilot roster currently in existance. They weren’t necessarily considered exceptional pilots, but their numbers certainly made up for it. And with so many numbers, they had the luxury of forming large fleets rather quickly. However, the beauty of it was the inevitable ability to find plenty of targets as well as a good fleet fight.

But anyways, for the first half of the roam, things went alright. Few significant targets were found except a passing Hurricane that was obviously set up for ratting. Sadly, Selina didn’t even get in close enough to let loose some of her dust covered ammo. The unfortunate pilot had decloaked on the far side of the gate from where she was and went down so fast that just as she’d got her disrupter on it, the ship went poof.

From that point forward, things took a definite turn for the worse…

It really was no fault of the Fleet Commander’s or a lack of skill in the fleet. Fact of the matter was they quite possibly of a spy amongst the fleet, relaying their position and heading. It was either that, or the nearly 40 man goon fleet waiting for them had Lady Luck flying their wing.

The scouts for Selina’s fleet reported the present danger and even after resetting their course and trying to evade, the enemy fleet always seemed to know where they were going and used their jump bridges to repeatedly get ahead. Inevitably, they became trapped in a system, outgunned and outnumbered. All they could do was run from one safe spot to another, hoping to evade at all costs the numerous scanner probes seeking them out. At one point, they counted roughly 20 combat scanner probes out, in an attempt to locate them in their safe spots.

Finally, the order was given for them all to power down their systems and wait a bit, hoping that perhaps their pursuers would get bored enough to leave, or at least become slightly lax, giving them an opportunity to escape. Eventually they did and after quickly powering back up, the fleet made a run for it. But as with before, the goon fleet jump bridged ahead of them and once more they were cut off. It was still a hopeless fight. so once again, the order was given to power down all but the most basic life support systems. A brief discussion ensued from which it was determined a set amount of time would be waited out. If they powered their ships up once again and found themselves still camped in the system, then they would just go down fighting. Either way, after unplugging herself from her pod, Selina got a bit caught up in a movie in the frigate’s rec room that she missed the designated time to make their escape.

“No worries,” she explained to the crew commander over her com link as she prepared for bed that evening. “It might be better to make our own run for home, flying solo, than to fly in a large, fairly noticeable fleet.”

Staring out the thick window as she laid down to sleep, the dark mass of Goon space beyond, she took a deep breath. “At least I hope….”

A New Era In Eve

They are calling it Dominion. They are calling it the emergence of sovereignty. They are reshaping capital fleets as we know it, tweaking the combat effectiveness of factional ships, boosting the capabilities of the assault frigates, pushing forward with the development of a new IGB (In Game Browser - and not entirely sure if that will be released with the next expansion), cleaning the feeds our camera drones give when viewing planets, and more…. All adding up to an entire revamping of what it is we are fighting for, and how we are fighting for it, out in the depths of nullsec and even in empire.

Back in March of this same year, a series of cataclysmic anomalies took place and we were introduced to what was termed Apocrypha. That alone brought not only a few changes, such as the massive overhaul of the probing system, but also the discovery of wormholes. Natural phenomenon that provided portals to systems previously unknown to the current population. It was here we discovered the lost race known as Sleepers, which in turn led to the development and introduction of what has been dubbed T3 technology. The face of our universe changed….but more than just changing, it grew. It was, as most believed, an epic alteration to the universe we knew.

Some went on with their regular schedules. Living out their busy lives in Empire or 0.0 with their regular doses of combat and/or production. Markets fluctuated but eventually settled back into a regular flow. Business went on as usual. For others, the dream of exploring strange, new, uncharted systems, finding an entire system they could call their own, prospecting for materials and salvage that could fatten their wallets… It was these things that drew them out of Empire to live amongst the unknown stars.

But that was then….and this is now.

Within only a year, the universe as we know it is about to change yet again. Much of what we knew will be wiped clean. And once more, we, the pod pilots of Eve, will be called upon to adapt…….or die.

I suggest you buckle your seat belts boys and girls, cause this is gonna be one hell of a ride!

'Building' My Combat Support Fund

I really need to focus myself more. I really really want to train up my gunnery skills. I mean, being in a 0.0 corp with what is in my opinion, crap skills for gunnery is just piss poor. Especially when I try to claim I'm a combat pilot. However, I allowed myself to get sidetracked once again...

In a previous post, I mentioned that I'm looking for ways to bring in more isk. I thank both readers, fellow writers, as well as some fellow corp mates for the advice. In terms of ratting, I learned where I was failing and after some adjustment to my tactics, saw a noticeable increase. However, as I said, I still allowed myself to get sidetracked.

I was also doing some research on the net and came across a few decent guides on how to be "industrious". Even when I first started out in Eve, contemplating all the various avenues I could take as a career, I paid almost no attention whatsoever to building things. I mean, I did…sort of…..but only because the academy instructors forced me to. Reality was that the whole science and industry area just boggled my simple brain.

Truth be known, my first thought when I set out in my rookie ship was to become a miner. It didn’t take long before I realized how insanely boring it was. (No offense to all the miner’s out there.) So then I tried exploration. It was going quite well until suddenly there was a revamp of the probing system and next I knew, the career profits that could be made from exploration sites took a nose dive…and that was IF you could even find any sites not already cleaned out. So then I focused entirely on running missions. While not as insanely dull as mining, after you have the right skills, and a decently fitted ship, it really is almost just as monotonous.

Now, I really did enjoy exploration. It was exciting to me to probe down sites that you wouldn’t normally see without the effort of hunting. It just became frustrating to narrow one down, warp in, only to find it’d already been cleaned out. Fortunately, it seems that the whole ‘probe rush’ has begun to subside and people have returned to their normal, asteroid and mission grinding routines. Thus, I think it’s become a little more viable as an occupation. (key words being ‘I think’). As I mentioned before, I might still go ahead and set myself up a remote base of operations in low sec to run exploration sites.

HOWEVER, as I was saying, I came across a couple guides the other day on how to build things. After doing a little bit of in-depth research on what it would take to build a few particular items…I realized it really wouldn’t take me long at all to get the skills necessary to make some objects proficiently. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to invent and build the t2 variants…. but frankly, I’m not too concerned with that right now. Maybe someday in the future, like say after I finish my hybrid gunnery skills, but not right now. Besides, the t1 variants sell for a decent enough price (and god knows I got more than enough of the materials used to build them just lying around) that I believe if I make them and seed them in the right station markets, I could make a fairly decent chunk of change. If anything, it will at least be an interesting project to focus on. So yeah, I’ve already diverted my training for the skills. At present, the plan shows about 10 to 15 days of training. Then, once I’ve got the skills finished, THEN I’ll finally be ready to remap my attributes and put my focus on my gunnery skills.

Pirate? ROFLMFAO

/begin rant.

I don't have a problem with pirates. I really, honestly, truly don't. I even gave a half-assed attempt at the pirate life myself a short time back while I was waiting on word about joining the nullsec corp I'm with now. I’ll admit it was a rather fail attempt but an attempt nonetheless. They swoop in, blow your ship to bits, loot your stuff, and then vanish as quickly as they appeared. Generally they fly small frigates and cruisers, opting for the quick hit and fade. Other times you'll find em in large groups with large ships, hurtling themselves mercilessly at anything that doesn't run or run away fast enough. I tip my hat to a lot of them, for both their skill and their prowess to be able to survive on such an existence. Not only survive....but thrive.

However, there are some out there calling themselves pirates that really get under my skin. To me, it's these people who tarnish the title of pirate. Frankly, in my opinion, they're not pirates at all but rather just posers who want numbers rather than quality for their killboards.

This is the second time this incident has happened to me so yeah. Maybe I’m shedding some so-called frustrated carebear tears over it, but it really is just pathetic.

What I’m talking about it is the slackers sitting at stargates in low sec, smart bombing rookie ships, shuttles and frigs coming out of warp at gates.

It seems to be a growing trend since I’ve been seeing it a lot more often lately. A trend I believe to be rather craptastic. I mean, if you do it on occasion for shits and giggles, fine. Whatever floats your boat and I wouldn’t be sitting here griping about it now even if I did find it annoying. But take for instance the guy who blew apart my haulers rookie ship this past weekend….

Quick story goes...I’d put a few +1 implants I’d obtained over time from doing low level missions into the hold of a freebie rookie ship and set out. She was headed from Jita to Heimatar to meet up with an old friend who recently got his pilot’s license. It’s not much, and generally worthless to me as I’ve got like a dozen of each implant type just sitting in my hanger there in Jita, but I figured a few implants would be quite helpful to him to stimulate his learning. I decided to set the course to go through the lowsec systems near Jita since I was in a free ship, and carrying nothing but 4 cheap implants. I wasn’t worried at all about losing em if I got caught somehow. If I was worried, I would’ve had no problem taking the long route….but again, didn't really care.

Anyways, keeping this story short, I got bombed coming out of warp at the second to last gate of the shortcut. Fortunately, 3 of the 4 implants went poof along with my ship so he didn’t get much out of it and all it really did was cause me to take an express trip back the six systems to Jita and make the trip again. The second time I simply avoided that particular gate and made it to my destination without a second incident.

Now, for the sake of not giving him whatever bit of glory or hard-on he gets from it, I’m refraining from mentioning his name but I will say he belongs to the Negative Ten corporation. And I mention this fact only because I found it rather funny that more than half of the people I saw from their corporation that day weren’t even negative five, this buffoon included. Anyways….in my usual fashion, I couldn’t help myself. Instead of running away in my pod like most probably would, I instead sat there, at the gate with him, making fun of him from my pod over local. Especially when he gloated about having the one implant that survived the wreck, as well as his fail attempt at smart bombing me in my pod. But then what really got me was when I check this guy’s killboard and see that a VERY large portion of his “kills” are frigs, shuttles, pods and rookie ships by….wouldn’t you guess…smart bombs!

For the love of the Eve gods….what is happening to pirates these days???

/end rant.

Show Me the Iskies!

So I was actually able to undock for the first time in what would seem like forever. Okay...not really forever but still, it was a rather lengthy bit of time.

I'd particularly set this weekend aside for Eve as the tournament began this week and so far it seems to be kicking off to a great start. Not so much for my own alliance as admittedly we got pummelled in our first match but ahh well. Our team had a decent setup in my opinion, just that their opponents came with something better.

As for my own activities while this was going on, I did jack into the ship in just enough time to hear of a POS defense fleet in effect. Seems Brick Squadron had decided to put one of our own POS's into reinforced mode. I didn't make it in time for most of the action, although I guess there never was much...but after hopping in the Megathron, I undocked and headed to the system anyways along with another pilot named S3V3N in a battleship as well and an inty pilot (whose name I forgot, apologies) scouting for us through the 9 or so jumps. Unfortunately, we made it just in time to meet up with the main fleet for the roam back to our home system. The bricks did manage as we were leaving to put a small fleet together to trail behind us on our way home but pretty much kept their distance, only hoping to pick off any stragglers.

I had to take care of a few errands after that, so once again, i missed another fleet op but ahh well. I spent the rest of the weekend attempting to earn back some of the money I spent on my move out to nullsec.

Speaking of which...I'm going to have to look into other means of isk making. I mean, in roughly the 8 or 9 hours of ratting, i made about 120 million in bounties and picked up a lot of nice loot and salvage but that's a lot of time spent making...well...not the huge sums of money I had heard could be made living the 0.0 life. I've never done a 0.0 plex so I might hunt down one of those and give it a try but I've heard they can be quite difficult to manage solo.

The other thing I've considered is moon mining. Though I haven't the foggiest idea how that works. As I understand it, you set up a tower, put some moon thingamajigs up next to it, set up some defenses, some silos, and give it fuel. Somehow though that just seems a little too simple.... :/ Besides the fact I don't even know what skills I'd need to operate all this and even if I did figure all that out, what the hell am I going to do with the minerals a tower might mine when I can't even fly a hauler bigger than an Iteron I?

Meh...I'll try the plex thing. See how that goes first before I start looking at industrial endeavors. I'm currently finishing the training for Energy Management V to be able to train thermodynamics, thus able to overheat my modules. After that, though, I have Survey and one other somewhat lengthy skill I intend to train to use hacking and archaeological modules. I mean, I don't mind running plexes with corpmates and friends, but I would like to find things I can do solo given the vast majority of my corp mates are mostly European based timezone while I myself am American. If I can't run 0.0 plexes solo, then I just may set myself up a jump clone in a quiet sector of low sec to run plexes in. I can think of a few places that might be great for that...

Note to self though...may need to work a bit more on my probing skills given the amount of time it's taken me in the past to narrow down those sites....

Any other thoughts though would be appreciated! :)

Busy But Not Gone

OOC:

Just a quick post to say that RL has been a bit on the hectic side for me. Other than for changing skills, I haven't had much time to log in. It really sucks too given all that appears to be happening lately with the alliance! However, I'm currently in the process of making a RL move that has consumed my time with packing and other tedious tasks in preparation. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate moving! :/

So no, its not another 2 month hiatus like it was before. Oh, and speaking of that... I realized recently that my 2 month absence from Eve happened to be about 6 months into the game. I guess they do say that at about 6 months is the point at which people decide to either stay with Eve or get bored and leave. I wasn't exactly bored with it at that time, just frustrated with the corp I was in, busy in RL with various things, as well as reestablishing contact with old friends from the other 'game' I play. (Second Life) Anyways, I finally found a way to balance out my RL time, ended my term with the old corp in search of something else (which I found with Silver Snake Enterprises and it's alliance, Systematic Chaos) and returned to playing and flying with renewed vigor. I just thought it was funny though when I look back and remember when I'd first heard that bit about people and the 6 month period. I was like, "nope! won't happen to me!" and lo and behold it almost did... :)

But I did come back, and I am here to stay..............just as soon as I finish this move....So then I can go smash Bricks with everyone else! :D

DUST In My Head

At first I was just going to make a return comment in regards to what jamenta said in my last post, my entry for the C.K. Contest. However, I realized it was getting too long for being just a comment and decided it was worth a post of its own.

So yeah, it was kind of ironic with the timing of my post and the news release of DUST 514. I'm not sure of exact dates as I write this (and because I'm too lazy to look), but then again I did write the post even a few days before I actually posted it. Just wanted to wait a bit to keep some of my ideas as secret as possible. :)

Frankly though, I think my previous concept could still be implemented even with the introduction of DUST 514.

Now, thinking about DUST.... Originally, when I heard about DUST, I was contemplating writing my thoughts on the new game, creating my own blog post about it. Yet so much has already been written by others, most of them having the same opinion and thoughts as myself, that I didn’t think it necessary. However, in writing my comment a moment ago, I realized I had a lot to say still and sometimes it’s just nice getting it out, even if it is repetitive of what others been saying.

So to sum up my thoughts on DUST 514… Frankly, I’m not a fan at all of console games (mostly cuz i suck at handling a controller :P) However, I’m certainly not gonna go and emo-rage-quit over a rather vague and cryptic CCP announcement. I mean, so many details were left unsaid, it would be wrong of me to have a solid opinion myself already. Yet, the tid-bits they did give, did not leave me with a good feeling. Honestly, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least (and I’m guessing numerous others) if they had suggested the game being released for both console and PC, yet that was not the case. And I think it’s this reason why so many are upset, myself included.

We, the current PC gaming Eve players, are the ones that made CCP. Not myself specifically, but us as a whole. If it wasn’t for the population of Eve Online, CCP’s investors might have shut them down a long time ago. A starting company in the gaming business never has it easy. But they did it and they did via us, the game players and fans. Now, to create a game, a game that will affect our gaming, and not give us the ability to take part in that action unless we go and get the console game (and for some of us, the console to play it on which is priced at about the same these days as a new computer), then we get to do nothing but sit back and watch. I personally wouldn’t care if I had to pay another subscription fee to be a part of it. I understand it IS like an entirely new game and so I do consider it to be fair to have to subscribe separately…though that could be argued against. But either way, I just don’t like the idea of them trying to force me to play on another piece of hardware in order to do so.

I invested a lot of money into building the PC I currently use. I’m not about to invest my money in a contraption that will be obsolete in a few years when they come out with a new, upgraded, cutting-edge, better-than-ever, console. Yes, I realize this or that in my current computer will become obsolete over time as well. But I am not about to invest double the money for two separate systems. Besides, I can only play on one at a time.

So that’s my rant. Maybe I’ll end up being wrong about the whole situation and biting my own tongue for speaking too freely, too quickly. Or maybe I won’t. Either way, that’s my rant and now I’m finished. Otherwise, for now, back to the present future world….or uhh..yeah.…something like that. :)

Planetary Conquistadors!

WARNING!!! OOC POST!!! OMG THE HORROR!! (okay...so it's not entirely OOC. read on..)

---

So anybody who knows anybody in the Eve blogger's world seems to know the great and mighty Crazy Kinux. And for good reason, as he's done a lot for both the Eve bloggers as well as the Eve Community at large. This month though, he's presented a challenge to our little wonderful community that even involves a prize!

The goal is to write an article on planetary control and how that would be implemented in EVE. Your article needs to cover what features, game mechanic, game design you would like to see implemented if (or when) planetary control/exploration/exploitation becomes available in EVE.

You're required to write a two-part article. The first part needs to be a fiction piece that tells a story based on the feature (or game mechanic, game design, etc...) that you would like to see implemented, while the second part would be the actual description of how that would work in game. Each part of your article needs to be a minimum of 300 words (600 word minimum for the whole article).

I'll be judging the entries and will pick the 5 best articles, amongst which I will randomly choose the winner. This lucky blogger will get to interview a CCP Dev during a podcast with yours truly! Details on the podcast will be provided to the winner prior to the show's recording.

So I figured since I achieved a reputation of perhaps being considered a very critical (and maybe even to the point of sounding negative) person in my comments on the last entries for the C.K. writing contest, I figured it best that I actually involve myself in this one. However, I would like to think my approach is a little more passive and reserved. No wild, crazy, off-the-wall ideas here! I swear it! :)

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Part 1 - The Fiction

The room was crawling with a roar of activity. Only moments ago, the system scan report had come in of a massive armada of ships entering system. They had not come by way of the local stargate so it was obvious this was no random roaming fleet. Every station and planet in system was in high alert as the focus of this enemy had yet been determined....but all knew the most likely target.

The system was SMH2-2, a system deep in the heart of 0.0 space and home to not only a moon full of valuable materials, but also a perfectly habitable planet. The balance between water and solid land was comparable to that of the mythical Earth, with an atmosphere consisting of a perfect blend of crisp, breathable air. This resulted in a prime choice planet for producing a vast array of resources needed for intergalactic commerce and thus garnered the attention of the numerous opportunistic alliances and corporations seeking to expand their territories…and their pockets. Since its discovery, the skies far above, outside of the planet's gravity well, had already become littered with the wreckage of thousands of ships, all having perished over the many months of conflict. And as was obvious today, the current sovereign alliance was about to have its control challenged once again.

Upon receiving her orders, Ailiana gave a stout salute to the commanding officer before running for her ship. It was a Talon class atmospheric combat ship, or ACS, humbly named Feral Glimmer. She wished she could be a part of the initial defense force far out in the depths of space, jacked into a real pod and a real ship beyond the planet's atmosphere, but the reports coming in told her it wouldn't be long anyways before she got her share of the action. The inbound fleet was far superior in numbers and firepower to be held back by the few pilots currently in space and would thus be left to those already here planet side. Here is where the real stand would take place. Here is where the enemy would not just be facing combative ships but also the planets defensive placements, built and cared for with a lot of isk and blood.

Just as she finished connecting the flight control jacks to the neural implant sockets on her head, she felt the vibration of the alpha strikes, the first impacts from the planetary bombardment the enemy dreadnoughts and battleships now unleashed far overhead against the terrain colony's shields. Soon she thought, as her physical senses dimmed and her mind became one with the ship, soon would come the enemy's own ACS's....and soon she would get her own chance to help prove that her and her corporation were going nowhere...

***************************************************

Executive Officer Arkold stood before the massive observation window of the mothership's command deck, a broad grin spread across his scarred face. So far, things had gone perfectly. After arriving in system via the titan jump bridge, they had made a very quick check of the fleet before initiating warp and landing as close as they dared to the target planet. The commander knew little of this particular planet that now swallowed his view... nor did he care. He had his orders and that was all he needed.

"Commander, you may begin the planetary assault procedures, executive order 194A-32HC."

"Aye sir. Commencing planetary bombardment." Turning, Arkold's commander activated his comm link. "Alpha and Bravo squads, initiate attack sequence."

Without a heartbeat passing, the sky between their fleet and the planet before them lit up in a brilliant array of lights as assault beams and blasters tore through the planets atmosphere, pummeling the stationary defenses far below. The pod pilots commanding these ships thirst for blood, thirst for the combat experience this presented them, but more importantly, thirst for the valuable isk this planet would provide their corp…and each of them as well...

The diligent commander, however, only hesitated for the briefest of moments to watch those initial volleys before flipping his comm switch over to a second channel. "Flight deck, prepare to launch all available ACS's."

"All ACS's prepped and ready commander."

"Roger that, ACS squads one, two, three, and four. Your designation is Viper. Launch on my command. Three....two....one....launch!"

And like missiles from a launcher module, the ACS's shot forward from the mothership, careening towards the planet at breakneck speeds. Each one piloted by the very same demi-gods who controlled the battleships and dreadnoughts alongside the massive mothership.

"Well wishes to you all," Arkold thought as he watched his fellow pod pilots descend upon the planet. "and may the gods have mercy on us all....."

---

Part 2 - The Mechanics

One of the oldest complaints I’ve heard in Eve, pretty much dating back to when I really started to pay attention to 0.0 warfare and tactics, was the failure design of sovereignty. Okay, so perhaps failure isn’t the best word but the mechanic is one that is obviously quite frustrating to many of the Alliances. Space is a big place. One could theoretically construct a station anywhere in a system. (At least it seems the NPC pirates can in Empire…) So would this mean they now have sovereignty? Of course not and for that reason, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be that way either for the alliances in nullsec.

What I suggest is to take the mechanic of sovereignty control away from the POS’s in system. POS’s come and go. What is permanent is the planets themselves. To control a planet should be what defines the actual sovereignty. You want to own more space? Then be prepared to defend and protect what assets you have on more planets.

Once an Alliance controls all the habitable planets within a constellation, they are then granted the ability to construct outposts. Outposts of course require personal, and thus food sources to maintain as the NPC agents seem to so often suggest in Empire space. It is THIS reason why planets are truly necessary. Without control of enough planets to provide the resources necessary to maintain the outpost, it becomes under-staffed and thus able to be conquered. With this in mind though, I am not suggesting outposts require ‘fuel’ in the sense of transporting personal and food to the station like a POS requires. Instead, just having control of a planet is in itself providing the fuel for maintaining the outpost. I am also not suggesting POS’s become obsolete as they will still be needed for moon mining, capital construction and their other current uses.

Now to control/colonize a planet, it would require constructing colony stations on the planet’s surface. The larger the colony, the more capable it is of withstanding an attack such as with shield systems and weapons emplacements. For an attacking group, shield systems would need to be bombarded by the dreadnoughts as suggested in my previous story, at which point ACS’s, or Atmospheric Combat Ship, would then be able to fly in and assist the battleships in destroying the various weapon emplacements. ACS’s is what the players are of course responsible for piloting. Many suggest FPS (First Person Shooter) combat in the way of foot soldiers via dropships, but I disagree with that. We are pilots. Not foot soldiers. However, I do agree it would be great to use FPS when piloting the ACS’s for a reason I will explain later. I also suggest using some sort of timer to define how long it takes for the NPC foot soldiers to infiltrate and take control of the colony. This is activated by any ACS who comes within a set distance of perhaps the colony’s main command bunker and can only continue counting down while the ACS’s are present on the planet’s surface. If they are all killed, or forced to retreat, then the timer is stopped and eventually resets after a certain length of time. The length of this timer’s expiration could also be dependant on the size of the colony.

To maintain a colony, one would keep in mind that various planets provide various resources. However, to sustain the colony, there will be other resources that particular planet can’t produce on its own. This is what you will be required to provide as ‘fuel’ to keep the colony active. This would be utilizing roughly the same mechanic that POS’s use in fueling their systems. And that ‘fuel’ is already available on the market under the commodities tab in the form of food, personal and medical gear. So very little change would be required in that regard other than making the commodities more useful than they are at present. Basically, instead of NPC’s providing those commodities on the market, players would now be responsible.

Okay...so looking towards Empire and the PVE folks, planetary missions could be gained from NPC colony agents to defend an outlying village or something of that nature from pirates or other colony factions. Courier missions would be to bring some resource or…dolls…to another colony on either the same planet or a different planet. Point is, there could be a whole new set of missions to be had from ‘Colony Agents’ that would or could involve just ACS piloting or take you planet hopping from one to another.

For the Faction Warfare pilots, much of the same mechanics as 0.0 space would be used but instead of fighting for your Alliance’s sovereignty, you’re fighting contested systems/planets for the control by the race you’re fighting for. Again, the previously mentioned timers would be utilized for this task which as I understand (though I’ve never fought factional warfare) is something they’re fairly familiar with already.

Lastly, the switch between an ACS and a standard space craft would require either one, the presence of a station or outpost, or two (for the nullsec folk) the presence of a mothership, carrier, or the hanger module added to a POS. ACS’s would not be warp capable. Thus, to use them at a particular planet would involve carrying that ACS via a regular spaceship from one hanger to another. Without the presence of a POS, outpost, station, carrier or a mothership, a person can not just simply leave their spaceship and hop into the ACS. What I’m also suggesting in regards to the motherships or carriers is the ability to ‘fly’ aboard another player’s carrier. If the ship gets popped, then yes, ALL players aboard lose whatever they have on the ship, as well as get ejected into space in their pods to live or die on their own account. (Do you trust that carrier pilot’s skills? Mwhahaha!!) Either that, or increase the size of the carrier’s hanger bay for pilots to store their spaceships while piloting their ACS.

The ACS's themselves would come in various sizes. For a class 1 ACS, the smallest, you would need skill level 1. For class 2, skill level 2. And so on up to level 5 which would grant you access to fly a class 5 ACS. The actual size of the ACS's would be relative basically to the size of a drone. Class 1 ACS equivalent to a small combat drone up to Class 5 which would be equivalent to a fighter. (if not looking exactly like a fighter even) This is where newer players would TRULY be useful to have, even in nullsec as an ACS would be just as easy to get into as a frigate. Though perhaps make it a rank 3 skill. Also, like drones, the larger the ACS, the higher damage output it has but at the same time, the slower it moves.

Anyways, as for pirating…well, I’m sure pirates would be able to come up with a plethora of new ideas. :)

So yes, these ideas might actually be at first glance a bit wild and cause a major change to the current game mechanics in place…but then again, just the idea of leaving space and actually flying within the atmosphere of one of those thousands of planets we see regularly would be an enormous change to the game face.

So that's my story and I'm stickin to it! \o/

Tears in Nullsec

"Begin recording...

"So these past few days have been a whirlwind of activity...so brace yourself as this might be a bit long...

"To start with, I'm now out in Nullsec (and no, I didn't get popped on my way out. In fact, I've yet to lose a ship, knock on wood). Life out here is certainly everything and at the same time nothing like what I expected. Even the feeling you get flying around, calling systems with no real name but rather a series of letters, dashes, and numbers, as home is just....well....odd. Tactics are also a lot different really than those I'm used to in Empire. Understandable of course given the extra tools available for use, but I find it interesting how those few extra items make combat a completely different animal. I've also learned a few things already in regards to my skills. There are certain skills that I've learned are essential for living and surviving in 0.0 that I never really put much consideration towards while living in empire.

"For instance, as a 'younger' pilot living in nullsec, instead of having spent so much time training to use an assault frig, I think I might have been better off training up to fly an interceptor. Not saying assault frigates are bad by any means given they lead up to using a heavy assault cruiser....but perhaps it would of been better time spent learning to fly an interceptor well rather than the assault. With that ship, I would be more useful, or at least feel more useful, in large fleet ops, than I do trying to pilot a battleship I know I'm far from being able to fly appropriately. So my personal suggestion to all the younger pilots looking to eventually live in 0.0, learn to fly the interceptor. You'll be happy you did."

*a slight pause as she reclines further back into her seat, her mind going distant for a moment as she contemplates the events over the past few days*

"Anyways...I'm rambling.

"Also, forgive me if I don't get all the details right as things were a bit of a rush and thus quite a blur for me.

"I believe it was Thursday evening that I finally arrived at the designated location. I'd made the trip in my cov-ops frigate with pretty much nothing but my ship and a few changes of clothes. All of my personal and gear had been contracted to the corporation for transport but had yet to arrive. No real concern but it meant there really wasn't much I could do at that moment. I did take the frig out for a little roam around the area, to familiarize myself with the surrounding systems as well as to set up safe spots and other useful bookmarks. Besides that, I believe things were rather quiet that night, though I had a number of things to get organized in regards to my computer files and communications equipment, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to comms.

"Friday, however, was a completely different story. My gear had arrived sometime over night. Props to the corporation's logistics folks for the rather expedient service. I actually was impressed at how quickly it arrived. I still had a number of in-station duties I had to tend to but otherwise I worked a bit on getting my ships set up. Of course, as many know, moving can be such a trial. It was while directing the maintenance crew on what modules to install on what ships that I realized how much equipment I'd managed to forget. So yay! Another 4 or 500 mil down the drain on yet more gear....

"Fortunately, before I'd left empire, I was at least smart enough to hire on a hauler pilot. She's a Minmatar who'd recently escaped from Amarr captivity. She'd bravely lead a small group of slaves to take control of a Bestower industrial ship and piloted it back through hostile territory to the safety of Gallante space. I'd heard about her through an acquaintance and was quick to track her down and hire her on full time as my empire asset manager slash transporter. And so far she's been doing a phenomenal job flying the very same hauler she'd 'acquired' during her escape.

"Anyways, I sent her the list of items and then sat on my butt waiting for them to be delivered. There was an op that went down that evening but with the missing modules, I just didn't have a proper ship ready and had to pass the opportunity up. Instead, I headed out in the cov-ops again and sat around watching traffic at a heavily traveled gate. Comm log showed me a fellow writer and alliance mate, Manasi, had passed through the system saying hello but I think I'd fallen asleep in my pod when he'd passed. Oops! Sorry bout that Manasi!

"So okay...that might have been Friday... though it might have been Saturday as well. To be honest, as I said before, things are a little hazy for me.

"Either way, Sunday finally came around. That was when I finally got my first chance to go out on a fleet op with the alliance as well as some friendly 'blues'. It seems there was another alliance called Brick Squad that had been annoying my new employers for a fair amount of time. What this B.S. alliance doesn't seem to comprehend is that when a mosquito continuously bites at a giant, eventually it's going to get swatted.

"Now...truth is they're no small alliance themselves. And I don't completely disregard their combat capabilities. However, they definitely didn't prove anything to me this past weekend other than to show off their ability to google insults from the comfort of a station.

"ANYway......Sometime earlier, my alliance had put a station into reinforced mode. Sunday morning, the station was scheduled to come out of reinforced and a fleet was formed to take it down. For this op...I was (or so I thought) ready.

"We undocked from our staging base and formed up around a titan. At this point, I'd like to stop and say wow! I mean, it was my first time seeing a titan and I gotta admit, it was truly a sight to behold. I knew they were massive... but seriously, no picture can truly define the shear size of the thing. Seeing it for the first time was truly a moment I'll never forget.

"But okay....before I get distracted again.... once the fleet was formed, the titan activated a jump bridge, allowing us all to jump from our home system into the enemy's home system.

"At this point, I'm not going to go into too much detail for security reasons but through a coordinated attack, we easily destroyed the POS with minimal losses incurred by, forgive me, ignorant pilots. I was fired upon myself at one point and was easily able to warp away, replenish my shields (never even touched armor) and warp back to rejoin the op. So how some people lost their ships is beyond me when I, a rather young pilot, can so easily survive.

"Now this is where I gotta throw in my two isk on the completely undisciplined chatter in local comms from the 'fearsome' Brick Squad. If your POS gets attacked and put into reinforced mode, you know they're likely to return and you also know almost precisely when. You ALSO know they're not going to show up with just a handful of ships, especially being such a large alliance! For instance, a comment was made in regards to Manasi's entry about the whole engagement by one of their members, that I think had so many holes in it, it was comical to say the least. As I basically said earlier, don't cry your tears when you continuously poke at us and we finally grow tired enough to swat back. I mean seriously..... again.... they pretty much knew exactly when we'd be returning and yet they stood by and did nothing but talk shit while hiding away in their holes.... Gotta love tears in nullsec.

"Later that day, we went back to harass them some more. We basically sat around their entry gate while still, again, they hid and pretty much did nothing. Occasionally a stealth bomber would warp in and drop a bomb on our fleet. Big whoop. I'd say only only about 50% of their bombs even hit us, and those that did barely scratched our ships. OCCASIONALLY, they got lucky and i think we lost maybe one or two frigates but that's it. On the other hand, we destroyed a number of their ships in the process.

"So.... to sum up, it really was a very entertaining day. For myself personally, I had a lot of revelations about my own ship fit, to include how horrible my range is. I can currently only fit T1 large hybrids. Not completely horrible I guess, but when you take into account all I currently had to use was antimatter charges which have a serious range decrease..... well... needless to say, the range we were at to the tower was out of my reach. I made a couple shots but realized I wasn't going to hit shit, so instead just focused on helping by repping my fleet mates when needed. Sucked I couldn't add to the dps being laid on the tower but ahh well, it was still good to fly with everyone.

"End recording."

Here's Your Sign

"Begin recording...

"Just a quick update to say all my gear has been staged for the move. I'm quite proud of myself really for how much I accomplished yesterday. Came up with a few decent fits for the various ship types I have, bought all the turrets as necessary and found good deals on ammo for those turrets. I did buy a few rigs for the battleships (big ouch) and got everything transported out to the station where I've been instructed to stage my gear. On top of all that, I was able to clean my living quarters from top to bottom!

"So now all I gotta do is set the courier contract up and get my own arse out there. Fortunately, my crew already has the ship I'll be using prepped and ready for launch. I need to get some laundry done tonight but once that's finished, I'll finalize the paperwork, jack myself into my pod and off we go.

"Now, with my luck, watch me get popped as soon as I enter the very first nullsec system on my journey out there.... There's a rather famous comedian named Bill Engvall who does a series of jokes that always end with 'here's your sign'. If you haven't heard of him, look him up. Really great comedian. Either way, think if I get popped in the very first nullsec system, that it might fall within that category? Shoot, wonder how many pod pilot moments could end with 'here's your sign..'"

*slight laughter*

"End recording."

A Hole In My Pocket

“Begin Recording…

“I think I’m almost prepared. Only a few more ships and gear to be moved and I’ll have all my equipment staged for transport to my new corporation’s base of operations.”

*A pause, as the sound of a terminal can be heard.*

“1.1 billion…. That’s the total amount so far I’ve spent in just two days. Maybe to many that doesn’t seem like too much, but I’m certainly no old school pilot with a wallet bursting at the seams, or a hanger full of modules and gear built up over time. That kind of isk would make more sense if I had been buying a carrier or some other capital ship….but no, nothing quite as grand. What it amounted to was although I did purchase about 10 ships, a variety of hulls, Most of the isk went into a large variety of modules to fit on those ships and then some. Ironically, the only things I haven’t gotten yet are the weapon turrets themselves for the ships (figure a ton more isk) and I’d like to get a handful of rigs (another ton of isk). This is where a lot of playing and searching will come into effect as I try to figure out the best setups with my skill levels to fully utilize these ships. I don’t want to over extend my purchase of rigs. Rather I only want to purchase that which will work best for the ship setups I come up with. News has been made that the engineers have figured out a way to streamline the rig construction process and make simpler rigs for smaller vessels. I’m no industrialist, so I don’t know the full details….. but as I understand it, it will basically make buying rigs for frigates, cruisers and battlecruisers a hell of a lot cheaper than what’s currently available on the market. So why spend all my isk on them now?

“Working on setups for these ships won’t be easy for me either honestly, given that a number of the ship hulls are of the variety that I’m not accustomed to. For instance the HACs as well as the battlecruisers. The HACs I’m not used to simply because it really wasn’t all that long ago that I first gained enough knowledge to fly them. The battlecruisers I’ve been able to fly for a long time now, but just never saw the need. They’re not the type of ship I’d use for doing missions, nor are they the type of ship my last corp utilized for roams. So I just never got one and fitted one before. How much use they’ll see from me in 0.0 I honestly don’t know but some reason I couldn’t resist the urge to get them while I was on my little spending spree…

“Anyways, I figure everything will be finished and ready for transport either tonight or tomorrow night and I’ll be setting eyes myself on the new home system no later than tomorrow night. I just hope I don’t make the freighter pilot choke when he sees my cargo manifest…

“End recording.”

Ready....Set.....CRAP!!

"Begin recording...."

*the tapping of a holo pad can be heard as she punches in various numbers and figures*

"So I've run into a conundrum..."

*A sigh as she seems to be contemplating the results of her entries*

"Frankly.... as is obvious, there's a lot about living in nullsec that is going to take some getting used to. Logistics is ENTIRELY different than what you find in Empire. Need a ship? Sit down at any terminal and within moments, you can generally find it and usually not too far away. Of course, depending on how far your willing to travel, you'll have lots of options to get it for a competitive price. You don't have to concern yourself with having someone else get it and move it for you. You want it, just hop in a shuttle, or even just your pod if your bold enough and go get it yourself. But living on the edge of the universe takes just a bit more effort and foresight.

"So it was asked of me yesterday what ships I had. Or rather what ships I intended to have transported out to my new corp's base of operations....

"Thing is...I don't really have any ships. Okay...actually I have a hanger full of ships. Just none that I can utilize well. Take the Megathron for instance. In my opinion, I'm really only skilled enough to use it for agent missions at this time. In that beast, with the support skills I already have, there isn't a single level 4 mission I can't solo. Besides that, I have and can fly the Ishtar and the Deimos, though still lacking the ability to use t2 heavy drones, sentries and worse....t2 medium hybrid turrets. In other words, I'm not able to fully utilize it's capabilities in my opinion. So that basically leaves my cov-ops and my assault frigs, both of which i do have the skill training to utilize well.

"So okay, some may say, 'your a combat pilot! why are you lacking so bad in gunnery skills?!' To which my answer is and always will be, what good are using the tricked out blasters or railguns if you can't target far enough away? or fit the modules that'll keep you alive to fire off more than your first round? In other words, I've been so focused on training all the skills I believe to be necessary support skills, that I've put my gunnery skills to the side just a bit. Reason for this is that after I get my support skills to the level I'm happy with, I intend to have the doc's do a neural remap of my learning implants. This will drastically change my ability to train my skills in gunnery and drones at a very fast pace. So not only will I catch up with my peers in their gunnery skills, but will fly by them while already having all the needed support skills.

"Sure, there will be lots of support skills that I won't have maxed out. But after doing the numbers, I only have about 30 more days left of training with my current attributes before I'm able to use pretty much every t2 module under the stars besides industrial stuff such as T2 mining lasers, capitol ship stuff and of course those in the category of weapon systems. After the neural remap...it won't take too long to get those weapons though. So sure, I may lack a bit in other support skills, skills that don't give you access to better tech but instead just give bonuses to those modules, but that I don't mind. That will come with time. Call me odd if you will, but to me its just the idea of being able to use em.

"I have deviated a bit though. My old friend, and corpmate once again, Prom, can be quite persuasive. The bastard..."

*laughing lightly she continues*

"Basically, I only have 9 days of training to use t2 heavies. This will be quite useful for ratting in 0.0 as well as fleet engagements so as I said, with a little persuasion from Prom, I decided to go ahead and finish it. With my T1 medium and large guns, I won't be of major use in fleet engagements really, but it will at least put me up a step and....well....make me feel at least a little better equipped.

"Once I get that, it'll be back to the support skills again. It's hard for me to deviate away from something once I got my mind set to it. I mean, maybe it's not the right path to take in my training but ah well. Only about 30 days left and it won't matter anyways.

"End recording."

Children and Snakes

Region: Aridia
Constellation: Ombil
Solar System: Balas
Planet: Balas I - Moon 11
Station: Inherent Implants Biotech Production

"Begin recording"

*momentary pause*

"Few things to report today...

"First I'll start off with that I lost another Ishkur. This one to a force recon that I never saw coming. I was running a small anomaly in a dead end system, saw the pilot appear on the local communications channel, kept my eye on the scanner...but somehow, I never even saw his probes. Really don't know how he located me, but I'm of the opinion my scanner was experiencing technical difficulties. Either way, he was a corp mate of another pilot I'd shot down earlier that day in a Rifter. Found the Rifter sitting idly at a planet and was able to warp in right on top of him. His friend in a Megathron came to help but was far too late. Seems the Amarrian force recon pilot came for revenge of his comrade...

"Either way, when the recon appeared, I tried to run again. I'd just finished clearing the site of its defenses and was checking wreckages for anything of value. When he appeared, I quickly engaged the ship to warp out, but forgot my afterburner was still engaged. When accelerating for warp, it takes a lot longer to reach that 75% of top speed to get into warp, given your higher max speed allowed by the AB. Suffice it to say, he had his disruptor on me long before I could reach full speed. I still tried to burn away but my AB versus his MWD prevented that from happening. By the time I gave up and turned to engage, it was of course far too late as I was now under the fire of both him and his companion in a Myrimidon.

"Yet another moment that could have easily been avoided... Either way, I was not upset in the least about it and offered a congratulatory 'gf' in local. The Myrimidon pilot was the same pilot that had tried to get me before in the Mega and was cordial in response. The recon pilot however was a complete moron, feeling the need to be completely rude from the start because I'd tried to run instead of fight. I mean seriously...a less than one year old frig pilot against a 6 year old recon pilot (in terms of pilots license) AND a myrmidon?? Give me a break.

"Anyways... I'd considered going back just the harass/annoy the hell out of the guy since he wanted to claim it was 'their' space and be a fucking rectal ranger about the whole thing... but frankly, I'd rather be flying and combating against adult pilots rather than undisciplined children."

*slight laughter*

"Can you tell I'm a little wound up about it still?"

*clears her throat*

"So...moving on. I purchased a new ship and decided to travel into the deepest parts of lowsec. Taking a long look at the maps, it's my opinion that the region, Aridia, seems to have the most low sec systems than any other. In fact, it almost appears the entire region is made up of low sec with just a few spots of high sec here and there. So that's where I am now.

"I did a bit of recon yesterday evening and I think I've found me a few good spots to hunt. One system seems to be chocked full of industrialists. If I can catch em right, I just might be able to snag me a few good kills before they gang up and force me out. Which won't be any concern given my last bit of info to enter.

"And that bit would be I am now a member of Silver Snake Enterprises, part of the alliance, Systematic Chaos! Yep, my app went through and I logged on the aura network this morning just long enough to see the 'welcome package' in my inbox. Basically a butt load of files to go through. Not that I care. I mean, this will be my first nullsec corp and I'm quite excited about it. I've had my moments in nullsec but to actually live there... Again, very exciting to me.

"Some say nullsec isn't what it's cracked up to be. Others say its WAY better than empire. I say to each their own and the only way to form a real opinion is to actually go there yourself. So who knows, maybe eventually I'll return to empire. But for now, definitely excited to give life in 0.0 a try.

"End Recording."